Dominating SERPs In Your Niche (Beyond Your Brand)

Will Scott recently published a post referencing SERP domination as “The Holy Grail of SEO”. Coincidentally, I recently spoke with a client in the dental industry, they were looking to achieve a page 1 ranking in Google for a geo-modified version of the query “dental implants”.

“Chicago Dental Implants”, for example.

They explained to me that they were working with a limited budget and a relatively new domain. The solution I suggested?

Utilization of Parasite SEO. Geo-modified queries such as this as prime targets for promotion via established hosts. Obviously, the longterm goal for any client is an effective ranking on their target query with their direct site, but true SERP saturation can be achieved in a quick and cost efficient manner by making use of established resources. My suggestions:

LinkedIn Company PageCreate a company page integrating their target query into the company name. This translates into your target query existing in the page title of your company page on LinkedIn. It’s worth noting, LinkedIn allows the crafting of a fairly rich user experience by allowing a textual description of your company, embedded hyperlinks, a video feature, and even any special offers you might be offering at the time. Promotion (and effective rankings) of these pages takes significantly less effort given their established trust and link equity.

PRWeb Press ReleaseDon’t believe press releases still work? SEOConsult.com, referenced in Will’s original article, illustrates otherwise, as does my personal experience. Leveraging a reputable company like PRWeb ensures you have an additional content source (think: low-hanging fruit) to promote to rank your target query with any copy you’d like. Ensure the release is drafted with a positive spin, but avoid sales copy here. Often times, third person neutral or positive mentions referenced from non-company sources can yield more interest than direct promotion. Even if your content doesn’t get syndicated, your end result is an additional highly-relevant authoritative content source to promote. Once again, ensure you work your target query into the title of the press release. Minor linking efforts yield astounding results. Voila.

YouTube/Google+It’s not shocking that Google seems to have a positive bias toward effective rankings on pages within their own network. Utilize unique copy for each, ensure the page titles on your respective profiles include your target query (preferably in a non-spammy way) and create or repurpose existing media featuring your company, product, or service. The end result? 3 solid (query-specific, content-rich, authoritative) sources to promote via linking efforts that don’t require heavy lifting.

At minimum, using the techniques above, we’re able to generate keyword targeted content that responds exceptionally well to minor external linking efforts. I have personally used these techniques to achieve non-branded SERP domination in as a few as 14 days. Hundreds of other highly effective parasite hosts exist. Invest your effort in creating content that’s compelling about your organization, the rest will fall into place.

Have you utilized this strategy? What are your favorite content publishing sources?